New York's Met Museum showcases a world of Islamic treasures

The timing could hardly be more symbolic. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Islamic department closed in 2003, as war loomed with Iraq. Now, on 1 November, just over a decade after 9/11, the department reopens in a grandiose suite of new galleries displaying 12,000 objects in 19,000 square feet of space.

Here are priceless Persian carpets, delicate Iznik ceramics, exquisite Mughal miniatures, and a 14th-century tiled prayer niche from medieval Isfahan inscribed with verses from the Qur'an. There is an astrolabe, dated 1291, made by a Rasulid prince from modern Yemen; and a voluptuous Safavid tile panel from 17th-century Iran, showing a sexily deshabillé courtesan desporting herself in a garden, with a be-ruffed European merchant kneeling at her feet.

The museum has even built its own "medieval" Moroccan patio, bringing in craftsmen from Fez to construct a tiled and stuccoed courtyard incorporating original Nasrid columns, and with a fountain – sprinkled with rose petals – gently bubbling at its centre.

The galleries cover art from a span of 13 centuries and a vast geographical spread: there are artefacts from Spain to Syria, the Indian subcontinent to Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt. Posters lined outside the museum urge passersby to "Rediscover the Islamic World".

At the official ribbon-cutting ceremony for the galleries, Thomas P Campbell, the British-born director of the museum, was clear about the political urgency of the galleries. "We must recognise," he told the assembled great and good, politicians and donors who had gathered in the Met's central foyer, "that we live in a nation where a widespread consciousness about the Islamic world really did not exist until 10 years ago, and that awareness came at one of the darkest hours in American history." He added: "It is our job and the great achievement of these galleries to educate our audience about the depths and magnificence of the Islamic tradition."

While the timing is coincidental – the Met works on its own schedule, not on that of international politics – Campbell later told the Guardian: "We could have shied away from the 9/11 anniversary, but we felt that made the goal of the galleries all the more urgent. And the background of the Arab spring only heightens attention to parts of the world represented in the galleries.

"We don't present ourselves as an answer to contemporary political issues; but one aspect of our work is in mutual understanding and education. To give our audience a more nuanced understanding of the past is a constant goal. There is an enormous breadth of thought, creativity and intellect behind the objects in these galleries – and they give a different perspective on a part of the world often presented in a reductive way."

Campbell acknowledges that there had been a certain nervousness about launching the Met's new galleries in the wake of the protests attracted by Park 51, the planned Muslim community centre near to the Ground Zero site.

"We didn't want to get caught up in the whiplash effect from the rhetoric around that," he said. "Ten years after 9/11, sensitivities are still raw."

The museum struck pre-emptively, with an outreach campaign "that was one of the most ambitious we have ever mounted," said Campbell.

Sheila Canby, the curator in charge of the Islamic galleries, said: "We have really reached out to the leaders of the three Abrahamic faiths in New York. They have been helpful and positive. I am sure someone somewhere isn't going to be pleased – but we haven't heard anything yet and I hope we won't."

Met employees have also worked with the 9/11 Memorial Museum at Ground Zero. "We want to find ways to work together, not throw mud at each other," said Canby.

The politics extend beyond the domestic audience. For the first time, the museum is working with the state department to promote the galleries via videos and posters in the public spaces of US embassies worldwide.

If the initiative is partly about attracting visitors to the museum, there is also a deeper, more subtle, message to convey: that the US takes the culture of the Islamic world seriously and is interested in exploring it beyond the cliches and the news headlines.

Harnessing cultural institutions as a tool of soft diplomacy is more frequent in Europe, where national museums are publicly funded, than in the US. The British Museum, for example, worked closely with the Iranian authorities when bringing its Shah Abbas exhibition to London in 2009, and with China in 2005 before its "terracotta warriors" show devoted to the first emperor, Qin Shihuandi.

For the privately financed Met, though, this is a fresh step. According to Campbell: "We are not a tool of government, we are independent. But it is wonderful for us to be able to promote our galleries to a global audience – and show that there is a thirst for more understanding in America of these regions."

Canby, who joined the Met in 2009 after 18 years at the British Museum, declared the move "wonderful. At the British Museum, director Neil MacGregor has made a point of this kind of initiative and has been very successful. It's not that we are copying them, rather that the state department is particularly interested now in this and they see the point. The initiative has been pursued from both sides: how we can make the best of this in a foreign policy sense and encourage people to come here to the Met."

Millions may still have a mortgage in their 70s as we buy first homes later

Millions are at risk of becoming ‘OAP mortgagees’ as they  buy their first homes later in life.
Many are being forced to rent for much longer than intended because of job insecurity and a credit drought.
Banks and building societies are also demanding large deposits before approving loans.

As a result, more than a quarter of private tenants currently seeking to buy are now in their 40s.
If they do manage to get on the  property ladder, they will be faced with either paying off their mortgage faster than the 25-year norm, or being lumbered with repayments well into their 70s.

The number of households renting privately has risen by more than a million in less than a decade – from 2.1million in 2001 to 3.4million in 2010.
More than half of these tenants feel they are stuck in the rental sector and would like to buy but simply cannot afford to, according to research conducted for property website Rightmove.
‘Over half of those in rented accommodation would like to buy but can’t make the sums add up and, as a result, are trapped,’ said Miles Shipside, the firm’s commercial director.
‘The global economic woes  that have left first-time buyer numbers at record lows will  shatter the goals and aspirations of many as they face the reality of renting for far longer than they originally planned.
Trapped  renters over the age of 40 could face the prospect of being  an OAP mortgagee, or face  difficulty getting a 25-year  mortgage term if it takes them beyond lenders’ retirement- age criteria.’

Lenders have been slashing their charges as the Bank of England’s base rate remains at a historic low of 0.5 per cent – but with rents predicted to rise due to a shortage of supply, tenants will find it increasingly difficult to save an adequate deposit.
Last week a report found that rents in England and Wales reached a record high of ￡718 per month in September, while soaring inflation, energy price rises and a stagnant economy are putting further strain on household finances.
‘The momentum of the  runaway rental train shows  little sign of slowing,’ Mr Shipside said.
‘New tenants are still looking to clamber aboard in their search and are finding a dwindling number of places to rent, as existing tenants have limited exit opportunities and stay put.
‘The rental journey is the only real option for many, and the majority seem resigned to having to pay more.’
Last year, a study by insurance specialist Aviva found that one in ten homeowners over the age of 75 is still paying off a mortgage, with an average outstanding debt of ￡72,500.
On a more positive note, mortgage-approval rates showed signs of recovery in August.
The Bank of England recently reported 52,410 home-loan approvals during that month – the  most since December 2009.
But despite the improvement,  the figure is still well below the 90,000 monthly average seen before the crash.

Naomi Wolf arrested at Occupy Wall Street protest in New York

Naomi Wolf, the celebrated feminist author and campaigner, has been arrested at an Occupy Wall Street protest outside an awards ceremony held to honour New York's governor.

Wolf and a companion were led away in handcuffs from the street in front of Skylight Studios in Manhattan.

Inside, the New York state governor, Andrew Cuomo, was being presented with the "game changer of the year" award from the Huffington Post website, for which Wolf is a contributor.

She was detained after ignoring police warnings to stay off the street in front of the building and where a crowd of about 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters had gathered.

Wolf had been at the event, hosted by Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington and attended by a number of celebrities, including the reality TV star Kim Kardashian, who was presented with a "business leader" award.

The protesters arrived at the event in SoHo to demonstrate their support of a "millionaires' tax", which Cuomo, a Democrat, opposes.

According to Ryan Devereaux, a reporter for the liberal TV news organisation Democracy Now, some chanted: "Where is Cuomo? Protecting the 1%!"

There was a dispute with police, who said protesters were blocking the sidewalk. Wolf came and told them they "didn't need a permit for a megaphone".

According to another witness, Wolf objected to a police officer's assertion that the group were blocking the street. "Tell it to the judge," the officer is reported to have said.

It was unclear what charges Wolf, author of the best-selling book The Beauty Myth, might face. Most people detained during the month-long protests have been arrested on misdemeanors.

Witnesses said protesters marched to a nearby police precinct, where they chanted and sang songs. A police officer came out of the building and used the protesters' now-famous "human mic" call-and-response system to tell them Wolf had been released from another precinct after being issued with a summons.

Earlier in the evening, it was revealed that a New York Police Department investigation had censured a police officer who used pepper spray on Occupy Wall Street protesters last month.

Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna faces losing 10 vacation days after the incident on 24 September near Union Square, shortly after the protests began in lower Manhattan, according to the Associated Press.

Video from the protests shows a small group of mostly women corralled by orange netting used by officers to control crowds. Bologna approaches and seemingly without warning blasted a cluster of women with pepper spray. Two of the women crumple on the sidewalk in pain. One screams.

The incident sparked outrage by demonstrators and helped propel the movement into the media spotlight.

Jarvis Cocker: 'Music has changed. It's not as central, it's more like a scented candle'

On a visit to his former school in Sheffield, the Pulp frontman talks about youth, fame and the changing face of pop
Anyone trying to spot the pop star in a Sheffield comprehensive school staff room two Mondays ago would have been unlikely to choose the lanky, middle-aged man in a tweed jacket and thick spectacles. Even back in the 90s, when Jarvis Cocker was the star of the Britpop band Pulp, everyone used to say he looked like a geography teacher – and he certainly looks less like a pop star than some of the teachers crowding round him in the staff room.

Cocker had returned to his old school to launch his book, Mother, Brother, Lover – a compilation of song lyrics spanning 30 years. In the assembly hall he stood on the stage where Pulp – then a bunch of schoolmates he'd harangued into forming a band – performed their very first gig in 1978. Because the band was his idea, he explained, he had been lumbered with writing the lyrics, and he sang a pretty dreadful early example – "She said, To be or not to be? Shakespeare rock, Shakespeare roll. Shakespeare rock, Shakespeare roll." A hall full of teenagers tittered with embarrassment.

Writing songs, he agreed, can be embarrassing. "So you either try to make people laugh, and make out you don't really mean it – or you try to sum up the entire universe in a single song." But all you really need to do, he said, is write about your own experience. The everyday lives of Sheffield schoolchildren are just as rich and interesting as anything they see on TV or get off the internet. "And that's my main message, really. Don't think that the things around you don't count, because they do."

Afterwards, staff queued up with their old Pulp CDs for him to sign. One had an original copy of the Sorted for E's and Wizz hit single, whose infamous sleeve featured instructions on how to fold a wrap to keep drugs in. I'd clean forgotten Cocker was once the voice of youth drug culture – and I suspect the kids he'd just addressed would be astonished – for these days he's more like the heir to Alan Bennett. He has curated a cultural festival at the Southbank Centre, made field recordings for the National Trust, appeared on Question Time, hosted a Channel 4 arts series, and currently presents an unusually cerebral Sunday show on BBC's 6 Music, whose recent escape from closure owed much to Cocker's advocacy. This summer Pulp reformed to play at a few festivals, where they were received like royalty, and last week his publisher, Faber & Faber, announced his appointment as editor-at-large, confirming his quiet evolution from drug-gobbling pop star to Renaissance man of arts.

When we get on the train back to London, he looks tired. "I haven't slept for the last few nights," he admits, on account of nerves about going back to school. "I was super nervous, yeah. I'm always nervous when I perform anyway. But you know, we all regress when we go back to school – you've got lots of weird memories of school. I wasn't bullied, but it was fairly – well, a bit rough."

His smile is slow and so shy as to seem almost sly, and he speaks softly, making little eye contact. He has a habit of half rolling his eyes back as he shakes his fringe off his forehead, which I suspect is an affectation he adopted long ago to disguise awkwardness, and he still seems slightly uneasy at being interviewed. "Well it's a while since I have been," he grins – but once we start talking about his book he begins to relax.

Lyrics, he says, aren't actually all that important to songs. "Words are important to me, but a song can work and function and be a good song with words that are fairly standard. But really great lyrics can't rescue a dog of a song. I find that quite a lot now that I'm doing the radio show. I get sent quite a lot of records and if I'm on the way back from the programme sometimes there's a lyric sheet, and I'll read something and think, oh, that sounds pretty good, and I get quite excited about listening to it when I get home. And then I'll put it on and I'll be like – eurghhh."

Cocker's own lyric writing has always been anchored in the narrative of his everyday life, finding wit and drama in the mundane details of an overheard conversation, say, or a rainy bus ride. But pop has moved on a long way since Pulp's 1995 hit Common People – the mocking tale of a rich girl who enjoys pretending to be poor – became what music critics like to call the anthem of the Britpop generation. So I show him the lyrics of the current top three singles, to see what he makes of this generation's.

"Oh, I wouldn't even know what they were," he says at once, apologetically. "I feel bad, because I used to be right into the charts. I stopped when it got too predictable. They killed it when they discovered that formula, where a single would be half price in the week that it was released, so all singles started selling loads in the first week and then dropping off. It stops that thing of a record building – the first week was always the highest – and then it wasn't interesting at all. It's a good picture of what capitalism does. They find a formula that kills off the thing they're trying to make money out of." Does he apply the same rule to – and I was going to say "technology", thinking of iPods and illegal downloading, but he interrupts softly. "Everything. It's what capitalism does to everything."

I show him the first lyric sheet – Loca People by Sak Noel, featuring a comic mixture of Spanish and profanity. "So this is No 1, is it? Right." He scans the page. "That's pretty good actually. It's kind of funny. I'd say it was vaguely educational, cos you pick up a little bit of Spanish." Next up is Moves Like Jagger, by Maroon Five.

"As a title it's OK, but that's the only interesting thing in the lyrics, I would say. Maybe they work with the song, but it's all those words – nice, smile, right. There are just certain song words that just work nicely in songs, like heart and stars, they just kind of sound right. So it's just like a list of all those words put together, with a swear word and a reasonable title." He slides it back across the table and grins. "Must try harder."

Has he heard of the next one, Iris by Goo Goo Dolls? He gives a blank look, has a read, and shakes his head in despair. "I wouldn't be surprised if that had been written by a lyrics generator on the internet or something like that. 'You bleed just to know you're alive'? I mean, really."

Cocker says he began writing bittersweet songs in his teens about awkwardness and disappointment because he wanted his life to have a soundtrack he could relate to. His own inept romantic disasters bore little resemblance to the saccharine love songs of commercial pop – so he wrote his own. I could be wrong, but his teenage audience in Sheffield didn't look to me like they were any more sophisticated than the adolescent Cocker – but judging from the charts, they don't seem to want the sort of songs he longed for at their age. Why does he think they prefer boastful rappers talking rubbish about bling, to lyrics they might actually relate to?

'Well, I've thought about that, you know. And maybe they just get that from somewhere else," he says mildly. "In a way it doesn't matter where it comes from, does it? You probably get it off Facebook now or something, I don't know. To look for some kind of insight or meaning in pop songs is not really – well there's plenty of other places where you should probably look first before you start looking for it in a pop song. I guess it was just because I was really into music as a child, and I wanted it to say more. It was the thing, wasn't it? And now it isn't.

"Music's changed in that way. People still listen to it, but it's not as central, it's more like a scented candle. It sets the mood. Also, because people like to multitask, in a way if you've got a bit of music on in the background and the lyrical content is making you want to listen to it, then that would probably put you off the texting you wanted to do. I think people like things that just make that right kind of noise, but leave your brain free to do something else."

He offers this without any hint of regret – but I get the feeling that's only because he doesn't want to appear judgmental. "I can't operate that way at all, no," he concedes. "I can't even go in pubs that have TVs on, it's horrible."

What he did share with today's teenagers was a longing for fame. Born into a lower-middle-class family in 1963, he was the archetypal arty misfit – insecure, shortsighted, "a little bit different". As is so often the way, he thought becoming famous would be the solution, and pursued that dream throughout the 80s, but after 10 years Pulp was still just a jobbing Yorkshire band with a modest cult following. He gave up, moved to London to study film at St Martins – and suddenly began writing better songs. Britpop came along, by 1995 Pulp were headlining Glastonbury and Cocker was a superstar – at which point he quickly discovered he didn't like being famous at all. After a few years of the usual cliches – groupies and cocaine, chatshows and excess – creative inspiration dried up, and in 2002 the band called it a day.

I ask why he thinks his own particular childhood longing for fame has become the universal ambition of almost every teenager today. Does it mean that all youngsters now feel as he did then – inadequate and insignificant?

"I think basically becoming famous has taken the place of going to heaven in modern society, hasn't it? That's the place where your dreams will come true. It's an act of faith now; they think that's going to sort things out." When he talked to the children he contrasted X Factor's fantasy of overnight stardom with the 15 years' work it took Pulp to be successful – but presumably he too must have heard cautionary tales about the false promise of celebrity when he was a child. So why didn't he heed them?

"Ah," he smiles, "I think everybody always thinks they're cleverer than everyone else, and they wouldn't fall into those traps."

The likelihood of any child at his old school getting the chance to find out for themselves is in reality, of course, remote – far more so than when Cocker was a pupil. Experimental bands such as Pulp were the product of a particular era when aspiring musicians could go on the dole, live in a council flat, study for free at art school, and develop their craft. Has that path now closed for good?

"Well, I hope not. But going to St Martins – if I hadn't gone there we probably wouldn't have turned into the band we did. I really think the art schools won't survive now – nobody's going to pay 30 grand just on spec, and I think there really needs to be a concerted effort to make them exempt from the fees, because basically a lot of people who would've gone won't now. So yeah, sometimes you do feel like a dinosaur, cos you've come through a system that doesn't exist any more, and that's kind of why I wanted to go and talk at the school, I suppose. I'm not meaning in a real ale kind of Keep Music Live way, I'm not really bothered about that. What I'm saying is it just stops creativity coming from that kind of background. I actually think that background has more vitality."

Compared with? "Well it has changed now. The big rock bands now are from slightly monied or privileged backgrounds." He's right about that; in 1990 just 2% of artists in the UK top 10 had been to public school. In October 2010 it was 60%. "I don't want to turn it all into a class war thing," he says quickly. "Maybe they've got more to prove. Maybe they think, I've got to prove I'm not just a well-to-do toff. So I've got to create something." Or maybe, I suggest, they're now the only ones who can afford to have a go.

"Well that's why I'm glad I went to the school today, cos you can get into that grumpy old man mindset – everything's fucked, it's not like it was in my day, or whatever. But you know, in my day I was on the dole – so what kind of day was that, really? Let's not forget, the 80s in Sheffield were fucking awful – certainly not halcyon days. You can get into that thing of everything's going downhill. You know, it's not like everything is irredeemably, irretrievably fucked. I think it's good to realise that, you know?"

There was a time when it looked as if Cocker's life might be going if not quite downhill then adrift. After Pulp he married a French stylist, Camille Bidault-Waddington, moved to Paris and had a son, Albert, now eight, and tried to recover a sense of normality and anonymity. At 40 he had decided he was too old to perform – but then worried that he wasn't much use at anything else – so he released some solo records, but they weren't terribly good, and in 2009 his marriage ended. He now divides his time between Paris and London, and is gradually getting accustomed to his new public identity as a national treasure.

"Well it's nice that people say that," he says, smiling gently. "It does make you sound as if you need dusting, but it would be worse if I was called a national disgrace."

Some did call him a national disgrace when he invaded the stage at the Brit awards in 1996, in protest at Michael Jackson's messianic performance. And in truth, I was never that keen on art school pop stars myself back then. I found them a bit pretentious; too arch and fey for their own good. If I'd had any idea they'd be displaced by the cynical Muzak which passes for pop nowadays, I'd have felt very differently, and I find myself desperately hoping his words had an impact on the children at his old school.

At the end of his talk there, he took questions. "What famous people have you met?" a boy called out. Quite a lot, said Cocker – why not name some, and I'll tell you if I've met them? The boy thought for a second, and called out the first name he could think of.

Skin transformed into liver cells to treat an inherited disease

Scientists have taken skin cells from a patient with liver disease and turned them into replacement liver cells, in a biological tour de force that promises to transform how the condition is treated.

The procedure will have to undergo several years of trials before it can be used in humans, but if approved, it could launch a new era of personalised therapies for serious genetic disorders.

In Britain 30,000 people carry a genetic defect that causes antitrypsin deficiency, a disease that can only be cured by a liver transplant. The operation requires a suitable donor organ and costs around ￡500,000, with drugs to prevent rejection by the immune system adding more than ￡20,000 a year to medical costs.

Treating a patient with their own cells removes the need for anti-rejection drugs, reduces the burden on strained transplant services and is likely to be cheaper, the scientists behind the technique believe.

"The disease affects very young people, including babies, and there are not always suitable donors for many of these individuals," said Allan Bradley, the former director at the Wellcome Trust's Sanger Institute in Cambridge. "These are early steps, but if this technology can be taken into treatment, it will offer great possible benefits for patients."

The genetic glitch that causes the disease makes liver cells produce faulty versions of a protein. The normal protein circulates in the blood and protects the body's tissues and organs from routine damage, but in people with antitrypsin deficiency, malformed proteins accumulate in the liver.

Over time, the condition causes cirrhotic liver disease and leaves other organs vulnerable to damage. Most at risk are the lungs, and many patients develop progressive emphysema as a secondary condition.

Writing in the journal Nature, the team, led by researchers at the Sanger Institute, describe how they turned to the rapidly advancing field of stem cell science to find a new way to tackle the disease. They embarked on a procedure that took months from start to finish and involved several steps that drew on recently developed genetic techniques.

In the first stage of the procedure, the team took skin cells from a patient with antitrypsin deficiency and used viruses loaded with proteins to reprogram them into more versatile cells, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. These are very similar to embryonic stem cells and can grow into almost any tissue in the body.

The researchers then set about fixing the genetic fault in the cells, using enzymes that home in on the defective gene, snip it out and replace it with a correct strand of DNA. This feat requires exquisite precision to ensure that only one of the three billion pairs of letters that make up the human genetic code is changed. Any other alterations to the patient's DNA could result in serious medical problems.

In the final step, the scientists used chemicals to convert the iPS cells into healthy liver cells. When these cells were injected into mice, they gathered in the liver where they produced healthy antitrypsin proteins and other chemicals released by normal liver cells.

The scientists now hope to partner with a major pharmaceutical firm and work towards trials in people. Rather than injecting the cells directly into patients, the cells will probably be encapsulated in a porous bag. This will ensure that patients are not put at risk if some of the cells turn out to be faulty and develop into tumour cells.

Scientists elsewhere are now expected to develop the procedure to treat other genetic conditions, including those that require the correction of several mutations at once.

"What we are thinking about now is how can we take this through to humans, accepting that safety is paramount. The beauty of our approach is that we can make the genetic correction and we can do it cleanly," said co-author David Lomas, deputy director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research.

"This is a very impressive piece of work," said Robin Lovell-Badge, head of genetics at the MRC's National Institute for Medical Research in London.

"There are worries that the reprogramming process to derive iPS cells is not always accurate or complete and that it can lead to mutations and DNA abnormalities. They found that some mutations have crept in due to the reprogramming and cell culture, but by carrying out a robust screen, they could select the least affected cell lines. So this is still a concern, but they show that it is perhaps a manageable one.

"The methods developed in this paper should be useful to correct mutations in other human genes, although the accuracy will need to be checked in each case," he added.